Lonely Pudding
by PolarBearMagus
Summary: Lily is sitting all by herself and the Marauders join her. Then she joins the Marauders.
1. Lonely Pudding

**A/N: Just a scene that popped into my head and wouldn't go away, like most things I end up writing (turned out different then I was thinking too). Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Harry Potter**

* * *

Lily scooped another piece of pudding onto her fork. She usually didn't eat dessert first, but today she didn't feel like following the rules. She closed her eyes, trying to remember what Professor Slughorn had said about simmering cauldrons at just the right temperature, and –

A tray crashed down next to her. "Hello, Evans!" said a cheerful Potter, followed by the clattering of his three friends climbing over the benches. "Mind if we join you?" They didn't wait for an answer but started shoveling food into their mouths like nifflers.

"Suit yourselves," she mumbled, not having the energy to challenge them right now. She kept her attention on her pudding. It refused to stay uncrumbled and on her fork.

"Eating by yourself?" asked Black, as if it wasn't painfully obvious that she was. He was sitting on her other side. "Where have all your friends got to?"

"They ate earlier," she replied shortly. She took another mouthful just to avoid saying anything else.

"Earlier?" repeated Potter. "The hall's only been open for a half hour."

"They had work to do," she insisted.

He frowned. Across the table, Lupin and Pettigrew were arguing about an essay Professor Flitwick had set. "But it can't have been 30 inches," Pettigrew was whining. "There's only so much that can be said about Cheering Charms."

"So say it in 30 inches, it's not that much longer than two feet."

"Easy for you to say, you've got big loopy writing."

"Yes, very girly, Moony," Black added. "You should try to fix that."

"It is not _girly_," Lupin growled. "It's called 'legible.'"

Lily blinked into her pudding. This could _not_ set her off, it just couldn't. It was always the stupidest thing that set her off.

Potter was trying to peer around the red hair falling in her face. "Er…Are you sure you're okay? Do…do you want me to…to find your friends? Or something?"

"Ten minutes," she choked. It was very quietly said, but suddenly all of the boys were watching her, she could feel their eyes pressing on her.

"You want me to get them in ten minutes?" Potter asked.

"I said I'd only be ten minutes," she said. "I had to talk to Professor McGonagall. I was done in eight. They weren't there. They left without me."

"Well," said Potter, "saying you'll be 'ten minutes' doesn't always literally mean that. Maybe they assumed you'd –"

"They said they'd wait!"

James finally managed to lean far enough to see her face. He cursed. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, and her face was turning all blotchy. She was shaking.

Clearly, this wasn't just the ten minute thing. This was something that had been building over time, and this was the final crack in the dam that made the river crash through.

He glanced at his friends, who looked just as helpless as he felt. He knew he was supposed to…pat her on the shoulder or something, but Lily definitely didn't always appreciate his attentions – okay, she never appreciated them. All the more reason to leave her alone. But he couldn't leave her like this.

"They probably saved a spot for you," Remus suggested. "And then…ate fast…?"

James sent him a _what was that?_ look. Remus sent back his own _at least I'm trying_.

"Think of it this way," Sirius said. "If you'd eaten with them, you wouldn't have gotten to hang out with us!"

"Are you _trying_ to make her feel worse?!" James cried, completely losing his head.

Sirius shrugged. "_I_ thought it was a pretty good point."

James sighed. What they needed was a solution that extended beyond the current crying crisis. Something long-term was out of the question, but something more than a temporary patch that would fall off in a few hours. Lily couldn't be left by herself like this. If only the problem weren't with her friends, they'd be able to stay with her and –

It clicked.

He waved to Sirius and Remus to follow him. "Peter, stay here. Lily, we'll be right back, okay? We're just going over there for a second."

"Yeah, we'll be less than ten minutes," Sirius agreed. James could have slapped him.

Instead, he led them down the table, where a group of first-years were huddled together, practicing the spells they had learned that morning. One look at the intimidating seventh-years, and they slid further down the table.

"So what's the plan?" asked Remus.

No point beating around the bush. "I want her to join our group."

"What?" cried Sirius.

"Just for a little bit," he said hurriedly, "until she sorts out this thing with her friends."

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Remus with a frown. "We've gotten away with things so far, but if she starts shadowing our every move…"

"Oh come on, she won't find out," James started, but Sirius cut him off.

"Lily is a smart, bright, intelligent girl," he pointed out. "Shut up Remus," he added to block the protest about the three synonyms he'd used. "If she's paying attention, like no one else has been, how can you be so sure she _won't_ find out."

"Fine," said James. "She doesn't have to hang out with us. I'll hang out with her."

"What?" cried Sirius again.

"That's stupid," Remus agreed.

"Maybe so, but I can't leave her like this, I just can't. She's falling apart as I watch, and I'm not about to watch her slip away like that, so don't ask me to."

"James," said Sirius, attempting to instill some reason in his best friend. "One crying episode is not falling apart. She's just having a bad day."

"But it's not just the crying!" he protested. "She's been withdrawing more and more every day. She's getting bags under her eyes, don't tell me you haven't noticed. And she…she…I can tell," he finished lamely.

Sirius and Remus glanced at each other, and then back at Lily, still hunched over her dinner, with a worried Peter looking around for someone to help him. James tried not to bounce on his feet impatiently. Unless it would help. Maybe he should –

"Fine," declared Sirius. "She can hang out with us for a while."

"Until she sorts out the friend thing," Remus specified.

"Right, until she sorts out the friend thing. But we tell her squat. We avoid the nicknames, and anything having to do with the map, et cetera. If she even comes close to finding out, she can find a new group of temporary friends."

James nodded. They headed back to the table. He heard Remus say, "I didn't know you knew the word 'et cetera.'"

"Good news!" he told Lily, sitting back down beside her. "We've talked it over, and we've agreed, you're going to hang out with us!"

It was only as he was saying it that he realized that getting Sirius and Remus to agree (Peter never raised any real objections anyway) had been the easy part; getting Lily to agree was the part he had forgotten to include in his plans.

"What?" she asked, sniffing. Good, it looked like the tears were stopping.

"That is, if you want to," he backpedaled. "We thought that you could hang out with us until you…er…sort out the trouble with…your friends…" Wow, that sounded really stupid, even to his own ears.

She finally looked up at him, and he could tell she didn't get it. What gave him the right to offer, anyway? He opened his mouth to tell her to forget it.

"Sure," she said. "That would be nice." She turned back to her food, which seemed to have gone cold.

Sirius leaned over and poked James. "Close your mouth," he whispered. "You look like an idiot."

James decided to put a spoonful of yogurt in it instead. Perhaps not so difficult after all.

* * *

A/N: For some reason, I always see Lily joining the Marauders because of friend trouble, since her friends were not even mentioned in passing in any of the seven books (especially considering most of her "appearances" are with the Marauders anyway). It's pretty lame, as scenes go, but I figured I wrote it, I might as well put it up, and if you enjoy it, great, if not, oh well. Try some of those AU fics ;) 


	2. Cheer Up Lily Day pt 1

A/N: Hey, a new chapter. Basically, it started with the first scene, and went from there...Also, please don't bash the boys' surprise. I made it stupid on purpose. They're not SUPPOSED to be able to write well.

* * *

Lily snuggled further under the blankets. It was so warm. She didn't want to get up.

She could hear her friends' steady breathing from the beds around her. She had come in after they had all gone to sleep, so the awkwardness was delayed. Until they woke up.

Last night had been miserable, but the boys had tried their best to keep her distracted. She'd spent most of the time sitting by the fire in the common room and listening to their banter, their jokes. She wasn't one of them yet, but she was no longer on the outside looking in. For now, she was somewhere in between.

Wait, was that just the sound of sleep? She opened her eyes. Her red curtains were drawn around her bed. She tugged them aside, and suddenly, that muffled humming grew a hair louder.

Frowning, she crawled out of her warm nest of blankets and crept over to the door, not wanting to wake the other girls. She hesitated, then turned the handle.

Was that…singing?

She stepped out onto the staircase and closed the door with a soft thud. It was definitely louder out here, echoing up the stone stairs. She slowly made her way down the spiral staircase, one hand on the wall to steady her half-asleep balance, the other held close for warmth.

She came to the final half-turn and suddenly, in view of the common room, she could finally hear the words to the song.

"…she's gonna charm off our heads!" the boys sang at the top of their lungs, holding out the last note.

Lily grinned, shaking her head in amazement. She went down another step.

"Kidnapped by mermaids and raised by the nymphs,

Lily was gliding, and teasing the stiffs…"

"Like it?" asked Potter with a wink.

"Then she met a poor fellow, he really was lame!

Lily killed him with love, it was part of the game!"

"It's horrid," she said with a laugh. "What is it?"

"It's your song!" cried Lupin.

"One last time!" sang Black, and they launched into the chorus.

"Oh Lily, our Lily, with eyes like a bean,

You're so smart and funny, it's kind of obscene!

Oh Lily, sweet Lily, you're hair is so reddddd!...

When you come down the stairs,

Better not hex our heads!!!"

She clapped, and they bowed dramatically, sweeping the floor with imaginary hats. "Thank you, thank you," they cried, bowing again and again.

"What's all this?" she asked.

Potter stepped in front of the group. "Seeing as it's Saturday, today is officially Cheer Up Lily Day!"

"What?"

"You heard me. We're going to spend the entire day helping you to cheer up. No homework, no essays, no problems that can be dealt with on a weekday. You're going to have fun, and you're going to like it."

She didn't know what to say. She'd never given them the time of day, and here they all were trying to make her feel better. She was touched.

"Thank you…uh…er…" She didn't quite know what to call them now.

"Oh, how rude of me," he declared. "I am James, and these are my friends Sirius, Remus, and Peter. Sirius Remus and Peter – the lovely Lily."

"Hello Lily!"

"Pleased to meet you at last!"

She smiled. James had solved the problem of the first-name dilemma for her. He smiled back.

"Now get dressed!" he ordered, and she noticed the others were all ready to go, and she was still in her pajamas. She gasped, and ran back up the stairs, but the only sound that followed her wasn't laughter, but "And dress_warmly!_"

The first order of business (not counting breakfast) was a snowball fight. It hadn't snowed, but they _were _wizards, they could make their own. Remus taught Lily the spell as Peter argued with Sirius and James over teams.

"But I want to be on Sirius' team!" he whined.

"Then we'd have the best spellcaster AND three people, you nitwit. We have to balance it out somehow. You're going to have to be on James' team."

"That's the ticket!" Remus said when Lily managed to conjure a flurry of snow. She packed it into a ball and started the game by lobbing it at James' head.

Suddenly the entire field was covered with snow and shrieking teenagers as they looked for cover. Sirius tried to get Lily to circle around the other team, but it was too exposed. She kept getting pummeled with snowballs every time she tried, which just made her laugh harder.

They finally grew bored around mid-morning. "What's next?" asked Lily.

"We were thinking…Hogsmeade," said James.

"What?" she cried.

"Don't you want to go into town?"

"Well, of course I do," she replied. "But it's not a Hogsmeade weekend."

"Oh ye of the uninitiated," sighed Sirius.

"Follow us," said Remus mysteriously, "and be enlightened."

They walked back into the castle, and up several flights of moving staircases until they reached the seventh floor. After many twists and turns in the passageways, they stopped in front of a giant old mirror, with gilded carvings around the frame.

"I don't see what this…oh…" Lily realized. "Oh no."

"Oh yes!" said Peter. "Secret tunnel, straight into Hogsmeade."

"You've got to be kidding," she protested. "Hogwarts doesn't have a secret tunnel."

"It's got seven, actually," said Remus. "But this is the one we want."

She looked at James to silently ask him to set his friends straight. He only smiled.

"Fine!" she said. "Let's see this secret tunnel."

"Step back!" Sirius said haughtily. The boys stepped closer to the mirror. She could see their distorted reflections.

"You might want to cast a Sphere of Silence over the area," James advised. "We don't want any passer-bys to spoil our tone."

Before she could ask what he meant, the boys hummed different pitches, exactly in the style of a barbershop quartet. James waved his hand like a conductor, one, two –

"Oh Lily, our Lily," they sang, "with eyes like a bean,

You're so smart and funny, it's kind of obscene!

Oh Lily, sweet Lily, you're hair is so reddddd!...

When you come down the stairs,

Better not hex our heaaaaaaads!!!"

She shook her head in exasperation, but suddenly the mirror cracked. Lines sprawled across the mirror in a spider-web pattern. Lily rushed forward, waving her wand for a spell, any spell, when the mirror shattered. The pieces clinked to the stone floor, and behind the mirror was a dark tunnel leading, presumably, straight into Hogsmeade.

Her jaw dropped. Her hand hung uselessly at her side, all spells forgotten.

"Come on Lily," James urged, tugging her arm. "Get inside before someone sees."

"Or hears," Sirius added unhelpfully.

They walked inside and lit their wands, casting small beams of light that barely illuminated the tunnel. Lily heard a snapping sound, and twisted back to see the mirror quickly fitting the shattered pieces back together into an uncracked whole.

"Come on," James repeated, and dragged her down the tunnel.

"Where exactly does this come out?" Lily asked.

"You'll see." She glanced at James, and he was wearing that annoying grin that said it wasn't worth bothering to get answers now.

"I say we sing that song every time," Remus was telling the others.

"It is catchy, isn't it?" asked Peter. "Oh Lily, our Lily…" and he hummed tunelessly as they walked to Hogsmeade.


	3. Cheer Up Lily Day pt 2

"Oh Lily, my Lily, you light up the scene,

You're so brave and cheerful, you-"

"Shut _up_, Peter," Sirius snapped.

Lily thought that was a bit harsh. After all, the other boys had been humming along before. Maybe it was because Peter had started inventing his own lyrics after the walk through the secret tunnel reached twenty minutes.

"We're here," Sirius added.

As the boys got into position, Lily squinted through the murky darkness, lit only by weak wandlight. Ah yes, there were earthen steps leading to an unstable-looking trapdoor.

"Normally I'd say 'ladies first,'" James whispered with a grin she could barely see, "but we need to make sure the coast is clear first."

"Clear of what?" she muttered. They didn't hear her. They were all bracing themselves to go through the trapdoor.

She missed the signal. Or maybe it wasn't even there for her to miss. All at once they were sliding out of the tunnel, wands pointed ahead in case there was trouble. She waited.

A hand popped back through the trapdoor. "It's safe," said James from somewhere overhead. "Come on."

She took the hand and climbed out of the tunnel. When she was out, she released a breath she hadn't even known she'd been holding.

"A storage room?" she asked, looking around at all of the crates and barrels.

"Yep. Keep moving. We're not scheduled to sight-see until 3." James dragged her past the rows of crates and out a small door.

She had time to glimpse a large room crowded with people before a hand abruptly pushed her into a half-stoop and then the five of them were shuffling along quickly behind a counter.

They reached the end and they popped up immediately, looking for all the world like they'd been standing there all along, except for their flushed faces and too-heavy breathing.

"So this is where you get butterbeer for House parties," Lily observed in surprise as she recognized the popular pub, the Three Broomsticks.

"Do you approve?" James asked.

Before she could reply, Madam Rosmerta spotted them. "Sirius Black and James Potter, what are you lot doing here? And Remus Lupin and Peter Pettigr – and who's this fine young lady?" Lily blushed and, very aware that she was still holding James' hand, let go. "Don't tell me you four are turning respectable."

James and Sirius exchanged a look, and then James and Remus were steering her towards an empty table in the corner while Sirius sauntered up to Madame Rosmerta saying, "Now mum, what makes you say such hurtful things? Me'n James would never turn respectable without your permission."

Lily shook her head at Rosmerta's chuckle. The woman was at least twice Sirius' age, if not more.

Faster than she expected, Sirius was joining them with a handful of butterbeers. Lily accepted hers with a small thanks, and the boys broke into a hearty conversation about quidditch. She sipped her drink. Didn't they think about anything else?

Then she smiled. At least they talked about something other than the same old thing. Hi, how are you? How was your day? Gosh, McGonagall is so mean, giving out a four foot essay on the weekend.

This could be fun, she realized. Hanging out with them. They don't seem as obnoxious as they were last year, or the year before. Maybe they were finally growing up, and she hadn't noticed.

This would be fun, she decided, and launched into the discussion.

A few hours later, as they were happily trudging back to Hogwarts, James noticed Lily grinning to herself. _Congratulations, Marauders_, he thought. _That was a good day's work._

* * *

_A/N: Yeah, kind of lame, but at least it brings the story to a close, instead of whatever I had left over from last chapter…_


End file.
